Macaroons After Midnight
by Klioud
Summary: Post-October. Contains Spoilers. Yusuke wonders if Madarame ever truly loved him.


June feels like it happened a lifetime ago.

Yusuke no longer expects to see unpainted drywall when he first opens his eyes in the morning. No longer feels like the low table in his dorm room is too big to eat his meagre breakfast at by himself. He no longer worries about nails sticking up from old floorboards and will walk about shoeless in his room.

Thousands upon thousands of hours have passed between June and where Yusuke is now. And yet, the past does not feel as though it has truly passed. Figments of it are still too vivid in his mind.

He recalls how light passed through the lone, clouded window in his old bedroom. How the sunlight desaturated his surroundings. Even the deepest and richest paints looked pastel in that light. But he knows now it was not the sunlight that drained the colour from things. That had all been Madarame.

Yusuke does not really remember his conversation with Madarame about the intruder wearing a black mask. What he does remember is how cold the door handle to Madarame's bedroom had felt under his hand. How rough the surface of the wall had been as he leaned against it.

But mostly, Yusuke remembers how Madarame had looked. His mouth was open but empty. His eyes were listless. Tension built in the spot between his upturned eyebrows. Madarame's skin sagged from more than just age: it looked as though he was finally beginning to bear the weight of what he had done. Never had Yusuke seen Madarame look more pathetic than he had in that moment. Yet it was impossible to unsee the garish gold in his eyes and in his robes. Whatever sympathy Yusuke might have possessed cooled into something immoveable.

On the morning of Madarame's confession, Yusuke walked through the shack for the last time. Nearly everything inside of it would be seized as evidence. Every replica of the Sayuri would be taken. His memory of this last walk-through is fragmented too. Yusuke does not recall packing up his few belongings. Just that he had stared at the blue-and-white checkered door to his old workspace. It was the one part of the room that had been painted. He would almost consider it foreshadowing: a sign that he would one day leave. Colours he had never seen existed outside this place. He had only needed to walk out that door to find them.

Yusuke remembers walking into the storage room with the gaudy peacock-feathered door. Madarame had left the key to it on the folded bedsheets and pillows he had piled against his bedroom wall before leaving for his conference.

The memory of entering the storage room feels too immediate to be just a memory. Yusuke stood inside its darkness for what felt like minutes. Then he turned on the light switch. The first Sayuri sat unveiled on the same easel. Copies of various sizes surrounded him on either side. Some pieces made by students he knew only briefly had been tucked in among them as well. Each piece would be a part of Madarame's undoing. Each a nail in his metaphorical coffin.

Even then, the room felt so _empty._

This had been an act of rebellion. Or it was supposed to be. But in the place where trumpets were to sound and an orchestra was to follow, Yusuke heard only silence.

Everything had felt so desaturated.

"It was supposed to feel exhilarating, I think," Yusuke says to Haru at twelve thirty in the morning. It is well after their respective bedtimes. This, however, is a rare occasion. It is not every day that he gets to stay the night in the Okumura penthouse and eat a box of imported macaroons.

Yusuke does not always get along well with his neighbours in Kosei's dormitory. One of his neighbours is a music student who practices with his tuba approximately three hours each night. Unfortunately, his neighbour is inconsistent when it comes to the hour he begins to practice. The student might practice between seven and ten o'clock on one day, and then twelve to three in the morning on another. Yusuke believes he is well-versed in blocking out sound while he paints or draws.

Blocking out the sound of a tuba while he is trying to sleep is another matter entirely.

Today, the student had the decency to give Yusuke advance warning that he would be practising all night long in preparation for a test. Yusuke had despaired at first: he had a history essay due the next day. He mentioned his situation offhandedly to the group as they discussed meeting up for a venture into Mementos. Haru then offered him a room in her apartment for him to write and sleep in.

Having completed his essay, Yusuke descended the stairs to the kitchen to grab himself a glass of water. That was when he found Haru standing on top of the couch and staring up at the ceiling. She noticed him but seconds later. Her face flushed red. Yusuke did not understand why she was embarrassed. He just assumed she had climbed onto the couch to get a better look at something on the ceiling.

Lowering herself off the couch, Haru led him to the kitchen. There she opened up the box of macaroons recently sent by someone extending their condolences for her loss. It has been many weeks since her father has passed. _It's improper to stand or jump on a sofa._ she had explained while tearing the plastic from the box. _I... it's something I wasn't allowed to do._

"It feels that way at first, doesn't it? Exhilarating, I mean. But, I think that's simply the anticipation," Haru says now. Reaches over to take another strawberry macaroon from the box. They have nearly finished off the first of two plastic trays of macaroons. Each flavour has been a delight. Haru had mentioned not liking the lemon-flavoured macaroons, so Yusuke happily helps himself to the last of them. "The thought itself is so exciting, but then the feeling... peters out."

"It's just as you say." Yusuke bites into the lemon macaroon. The pause is filled by the faint sounds of their chewing. Then, he swallows. "It feels like it should be something momentous, but nothing happens. Nothing changes."

Haru tilts her head slightly to a side. They each pick up another macaroon. Yusuke lets his gaze meander. The kitchen has what one might call a very modern look. Everything is either white, black, or unpainted metal. The cabinets and appliances are all sharp edges and right angles. The kitchen itself could almost be an example of perfect symmetry. It is a flashy but safe design. In other words, it is completely uninspired. It looks like a place one might perform an operation rather than prepare a meal.

The electric kettle beeps.

"But, perhaps that's it," Haru says as she goes to fetch it. Before lifting the kettle from its element, Haru rubs her fingers on a tea towel. Retrieves two teacups and a pot from the glass-front cabinet overhead. She speaks with her back turned to him, "We feel— or, um, I felt silly, standing on it like that. But I think I would have felt differently if I had tried before now." Haru bows her head. The only sound is water being poured. Gradually, that sound shrinks into a trickle. And then into nothing.

A few seconds pass in silence. Then, "I think I would have felt ashamed."

The thought makes him frown. Standing on a couch was nothing to be ashamed of. It frustrates him that Kunikaze Okumura ever had the power to make her feel that way. Nevertheless, he understands her feelings. Intimately so. Yusuke imagines he would have felt the same if Madarame had ever failed to lock the storage room and he had chanced upon it.

"I hadn't considered that," Yusuke says as Haru returns with a tray in her hands. She walks around him. Sets the tray down on the counter to his left. Yusuke slides the macaroons between them while Haru pulls out the second bar stool to sit on. "You make a good point. I would call that a change."

While the tea steeps in the pot, they finish off the last of the first tray of macaroons. Yusuke sets aside the top tray to reveal another layer of macaroons underneath. There are some familiar flavours: mint, chocolate, strawberry, lemon. Then there is a kind he is unfamiliar with. The macaroons are beige.

"Oh, are those ones honey-flavoured?" Haru says. Nods at the lid to the box that sits on his right. Yusuke picks it up and scans it.

"Coffee," he says.

"Shall we try them at the same time?"

Yusuke gives her a smile. The two of them each pick up a coffee-flavoured macaroon. Eyeing each other, they slowly raise their macaroons to their lips.

"Three," she says softly.

"Two," he says.

"One!" they say in unison. Then they bite into their macaroons.

Yusuke looks up towards the ceiling as he chews. It is definitely not his favourite flavour so far. When he glances at Haru, he can tell by her facial expression that she holds a similar opinion.

"It's not Le Blanc quality in terms of flavour," Yusuke says. "Even still, I'd call it passable."

"The flavour's not very strong, is it?" Haru says. Giggles a bit. "But yes, 'passable' is the word for it."

For all that it is only passable, it has a pleasant consistency. It is also free food. Yusuke picks up a second one while Haru lifts up the teapot lid to remove the infuser inside.

"What's one thing you always wanted to do, but weren't allowed to?" Haru asks. Places the infuser on a spare saucer left on the tray. Yusuke chews on both a macaroon and this question.

"I'm not sure," he says after half a minute. Grabs the pot before Haru has the chance and begins to pour her a cup. "Madarame could be strict, but he never had many rules." Once her cup is full, he pours himself one. "He'd tell me that he was worried if I ever came home late, but I had no curfew. I once failed a math test— failed horrendously at that, but he never scolded me for it." The pot goes back down onto the tray. Yusuke stares into his full tea cup. His fingers find its handle and do nothing else. "He said, 'Math doesn't matter to an artist'." Something burns in his eyes. Something cold. "He always said things like that. That he just wanted me to pursue my passion. To not lose sight of what I truly wanted. I..."

Yusuke's gaze slips from his tea to the marble counter-top.

"...believed him." Everything is so quiet. He can just faintly hear them both breathe in all this silence. "When I first bought a phone, he expressed concern that I might develop some kind of repetitive— he was using me. The whole time, he was using me and I. Obeyed."

The words feel like a vapour in his mouth. The kind that rises when something too hot goes near ice.

"But, Yusuke," she says. He wants to look at her. Finds he cannot move his eyes. Yusuke continues to stare into the bluish-white marble. "Of course you did. You were a child. He was your... father."

"I know," he says. "I look back now with that knowledge, and even still, I keep wondering, did"—his voice cracks into something only an eighth of its size— "he ever love me?"

Yusuke saw firsthand what Madarame thought of him: he had been a painting. A thing given form by Madarame's paintbrush. He, as all paintings do, had possessed a voice of his own. One free from the artist's intent. But no painting has the ability to free itself from a frame.

Madarame used to show concern whenever Yusuke hurt his hands. Used to press an icepack into Yusuke's palms and say, _These are your instruments. Remember to treat them well._ He wonders who Madarame had truly been speaking to then.

The silence in the kitchen is extremely dense. It is almost as though the air has turned to ice. Almost as though he has fused with it. Yusuke cannot move.

Haru can. Her heart is a kaleidoscope of colour. Ice cannot freeze that. Her bar stool breaks the silence as it slides backwards over the tiled floor. Getting to her feet, she steps behind him. Slides her arms over his shoulders and around his neck. He can feel her forehead against the back of his head.

"I've asked myself that same question," she says into his neck, "I don't know how many times now. I still don't have an answer... I wish I did. I could share it with you, then."

His fingers slip away from his teacup.

"It's like standing on a couch," he says with a tremor in his voice, "isn't it?"

"Or being in a storage room," she replies.

Shifting her head, Haru's curls tickle his neck. Yusuke places his right hand on her arm. Lowers his head. They stay like that for a few minutes. Haru is warm in the way that colours can be. He adores this.

Little steam rises from their teacups when Yusuke finally breaks the silence.

"In elementary school, I was invited to join the basketball club. I can only assume they approached me because I was the tallest among my classmates." Her hair tickles his neck again as she lifts her head away from him. "I declined, but I'll admit to having been a bit curious. It would have been an interesting experience."

"Would you like to try it sometime?" Haru asks as she disentangles her arms from around Yusuke. A part of him is reluctant to let her arms withdraw. "I don't know the rules myself, but one of the others might know how to play."

Yusuke turns in his seat to look at her. His prior reluctance dissipates at the sight of her smile. They are almost at eye-level with one another.

"That sounds like it would be fun," he says. "How about you?"

"Me?"

"Your question from before." Yusuke leans slightly more forward in his seat. "What have you always wanted to try?"

Tilting her head, Haru puts her hands behind her back. Likely to clasp her wrist with her other hand. He watches as her gaze wanders. It takes a minute or two before her eyes return to meet his.

"This." Her voice is as gentle as her expression.

"'This'?"

A wrinkle forms between her eyebrows. Haru's mouth stretches into a sheepish smile.

"This," she repeats. "Eating macaroons after midnight. Having you here with me." Again, her eyes turn away. "I've rarely invited others here. It wasn't that Father didn't allow me to, but... he didn't like it when I did. And then, I came to dislike it too."

"But you wanted to," he says. Understands. "You didn't like it, but you wanted company."

Haru looks at him with wide eyes. There is a question in the shape of her mouth. Then it disappears as her mouth curves downward.

"Yes," she says.

The kitchen is not as quiet as he thought. For the first time, Yusuke notices the hum of the fridge. It is such a small sound in this vast silence. He wonders if fridges have always sounded so ominous. If silence has always felt so fathomless in size. Nothing from the city far below them can be heard up here inside the penthouse apartment. It makes him think that this kitchen is less an operating room and more of a space station.

"An airlock," he murmurs without thinking. At the sound of his voice, Haru startles. Her hands appear from behind her. Hover by her hips with every finger bent.

"Pardon?"

She had been trapped too. Just as he had been inside of a frame.

Yusuke extends a hand to her as he gets to his feet. Haru takes it with a curious expression.

"And now?" he asks. Steps closer to her. "How does 'this' feel?"

"'This'?" Now she has to look up at him. Her fingertips rest so lightly over his hand. On impulse, Yusuke folds his other hand over top her own.

"Do you still dislike it?"

Two seconds pass. He watches the confusion clear from her face.

"No," she says. Smiles. "Not anymore. And you?"

"It's just as you say," he answers. "Not anymore."

* * *

In the morning, Yusuke and Haru each eat a plate of scrambled eggs, toast, and sliced citrus fruit at the kitchen counter. The sunlight does little to improve his opinion of the room. It does not seem like they should eat breakfast here. Yet the dining room had looked even less inviting.

Their plates and cutlery take up most of the space on the counter. The blender roars for a minute as Yusuke spreads jam onto his toast. Haru pours something fuchsia into two glasses. Sets one down in front of him.

"This is a smoothie?" he says.

"Mmhm, I'm sure you'll like it. Shall we try it together?"

He laughs at that. Nods his head. As they raise their glasses, he notices how rich in hue her chestnut curls are. How the sunlight dots her eyes. She is so radiant in this bleak kitchen.

It feels like he might be too.


End file.
